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SEO Myths That Can Bury Your Site – Part 1

To many, SEO is a mystery that is part science and part black magic. And while I have [mostly] tamed this beast a while ago (I have been doing local seo work over 10 years now); I have noticed that each client needs a certain amount of education. This only makes sense since not everyone lives and breathes this stuff as much as my team. This post will hopefully dispel some SEO myths that should be put to bed. Plus, anytime I can educate current or prospective clients about the realities of this industry it simply helps set expectations. So, if your SEO pitches any of this bullshit in a proposal run, don’t walk, away.

Meta Keywords – This tag came into existence in 1996 and within the next few years stopped being supported by most of the major crawlers. Effectively, this has been dead since the late nineties. So, please let this one go. It doesn’t help with ranking and is just clutter in your code. Delete it. Even Google says to forget it on their blog.

Keyword Density – Another bit of non-sense. Yes, there was a time when you could shove your keyword into a sentence and if your page was the same size as your competition and had it 10 times and the other guy had it 5 times you would win. This is oversimplified, but you get the idea. Do you really think that something as complex as Google’s Algorythm would use such simplistic logic. If you are trying to become #1 for Widgets the following just won’t work anymore as it isn’t how they determine relevancy and rankings.

“Wow, I just found the best WIDGETS. These WIDGETS are so amazing I just didn’t think that WIDGETS could be discovered so easily. I hope you love WIDGETS too!”

Submitting To Search Engines – This is up there with the Keyword Metatag in popularity. This has evolved from submitting for free, to paying for submission (Yahoo Directory), to submitting your sitemap. All of it is bunk and has been for years. The search engines like to discover your site, naturally, via links. At best submitting your site does nothing; at worst it hurts your results. Don’t do it.

PPC Helps Organic – I have spent thousands testing this and have never seen any positive bumps in rankings. If a keyword generates money for your business than you should invest in it. Organic or PPC-it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what it costs to get the traffic. For ex. if you sell a widget for $50 and sell 1 out of ever 100 visitors you have a 1% conversion and each conversion is worth $50 (assuming every sale is 100% profit). That means if you can spend .49 or less per click you are making money. So, by all means, spend money on PPC. It will only bring you more traffic and more sales.

SEO Is Static – SEO isn’t a thing its a process. So, you don’t do it once and never do it again; you have to continue doing it daily. Otherwise, your top 3 rankings will become top 10 when your competition picks up the slack and surges ahead of you. Plus, once behind its harder to catch up and recover the momentum you have lost.

No One Can Hurt You – I call Bullshit on this one. There are more than a few ways to sabotage a competitor. So there is always the chance someone will do this to your sites. I don’t think it is common but it does happen. We don’t utilize these type of tactics since they are -more than- pathetic. If you can’t get up without pushing someone else out of business you don’t deserve the ranking. Which is why we won’t go into more detail on how to employ this tactic here. Karma is a bi$&#. (The author of this post must apologize to Karma for calling her a bi$&#. Karma you know we have something special.)

Well, if you liked these SEO Myths Part 2 is just around the corner. Just give me a few days to put it together.

I agree, people tend to think there are all these crazy ingredients in SEO that you need but at the end of the day it all revolves around quality content, branding and user experience. If you fill those voids over time you generate rankings.

What are your thoughts on no-follow blog comment links? I think Local SEO and I have a similar stance. They might not pass any juice, they might build a little relevance, but if you can sneak one into a competitor’s popular blog post why the heck not?

Take the click-thru traffic and if anything else comes of it consider it a bonus.